Monday, March 19, 2012

10K Training: Checkin for March 16th + 17th

These were an interesting couple of runs.

On Friday (16th) I left work early so that I could get to the gym as early as possible - I drove straight from work to the gym. There was a track meet going on, so it was a treadmill only day. I was feeling pretty drained, so it was a matter of trying to find a way that I could not only run 3 miles, but do it under 40 minutes.

I decided to do some intervals - something that has been suggested a lot, but I haven't done much. I decided on 7mi/4.2mi... not timing either side, just running as long as I could then walking 'til I caught my breath. I finished in 38 minutes - not too shabby :)

Once I was done I had to race back to the house - luckily it was a nice day out so I didn't bother changing - and shower. I then hastily packed up all my things and jumped in the car for a 3hr drive.

The next day I was down at the farm visiting, so I ran with my mom :)

It was the first time I had run outside so far in my training, and boy is it a different experience. I don't know what tripped me up more - that I had no music with me, the fact that it felt like the wind was sucking all air and moisture out of my body, or the fact that it felt like my feet were slipping backwards as much as propelling me forward on the gravel. It was definitely tough - after 2 miles I felt like I had run at least 4 miles, and I had to walk for a little while to calm down my breathing. It felt like my heart was racing by the time I go to about the 1.5 mile mark. Mom explained to me that this might be because I was thinking too much about how hard it was to run - I was causing myself to panic. She suggested that I think about other things instead, to keep distracted from the fact that I was running.

It seemed to work - I didn't have any trouble breathing on the way back - although we did switch to a walk for a short time twice because my calf was hurting - serves me right for running two days in a row, and without stretching the first day, I suppose. Total time was 56 minutes for 4 miles.

The day after I ran on the gravel I was stiff - in my thighs and hips! That in itself means that I am going to call this run a success - I was finally running properly! :D Let's hope that I can turn this into a habit now.

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Because I think that this is quite tightly related to running I am going to provide you with a weight update here.

It will be a month tomorrow since I have lost weight.

While I of course do find this frustrating, I am losing inches still, and I take my solace in that. I'm guessing because of all the running I have been gaining muscle steadily - after all, I'm always stiff - and this has off-set any weight loss. That said, I'm still hoping to see a loss tomorrow, and every day after that as I step on the scale - who wouldn't be?

I'm not going to give myself an excuse to quit - only one to work harder.

2 comments:

And think about it - You aren't losing weight but your body is losing inches. What will happen once you keep losing inches? (Your body can only gain so much muscle but your muscles need to burn fat)... So once all the muscle is converted, you will be only losing fat cells and only maintaining muscle - this is when the weight will slide off. :) Or so the theory goes.

Hopefully that's the case! Actually I am expecting to see at least a small loss this week - I was actually expecting to see it this morning - but I landed on 197 exactly. (0.4lbs lower than my lowest 197 weight, but it doesn't count unless it tips into the next pound...)Tomorrow maybe. But if not, I'm not going to be crushed - I finally lost a bit on my hips this week, which is a pretty big victory because so far my measurements have been going down for my bust and waist but my hips had been staying the same.